Book excerpt: Vagabondess: A Guide to Solo Female Travel is a book for women-and all people!-who want to travel solo, face their fears, and live the adventure of their dreams. This book is for the travelers, the feminists, the adventurers, the seekers and the curious. The author shares insights from over 10 years of solo travel through Asia, Africa, Europe, and Central America.Vagabondess is much more than a guide. It is a collection of travelogue, philosophy, stories, and, yes, travel advice. It is about embracing the vagabondess-her spirit of adventure, her curiosity, her dedication to growth and discovery-who lives inside each of us, showing up in our lives in a myriad of ways.If you were waiting for someone to tell you that your dreams are just crazy enough, and then give you some practical suggestions for how to get there, then this is the book for you."Why Vagabondess? A vagabondess has earth and salt to balance her air. Her lifestyle is not a romantic, Instagram-filter utopia, but rather gritty and smeared with sweat. A vagabondess is not a symbol of an ideal of a life. She is alive.A vagabondess weaves magic into the everyday and touches the profound with her toes as she wanders-aimlessly, purposefully-through her inner landscape and the outer wilderness of the modern world. She unites nostalgia for a freer past and hope for a liberated future by living squarely in the present tense. For solo female travelers, the vagabondess is an attainable objective, not a holy grail. She is within easy reach, if only we look in the right place: inside."